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If you’re in a long-term relationship, but you—how do I put this gracefully—had your fun back in the day, then you’ve probably noticed that the way you are in bed in a committed relationship versus the way you were in bed during one night stands and casual flings is very different. Each has their merits. With your serious partner, there’s the element of love, which can make sex so much better. When you physically connect, you’re strengthening emotional connections, too. And, it’s nice to have that sense of built-in trust in a committed relationship, and the understanding that you’re the only person this person gets this close to. But, one-night stands had that whole primal thing. You tried whatever. You were spontaneous and fearless. Long-term couples can struggle to infuse that type of spontaneity into their sex life. And here is why that happens.
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Your bedroom vs life identity
Your partner has this really solidified idea of who you are. And, perhaps, if you were able to let your freak flag fly, he’d see that your bedroom personality is very different than, well, the rest of your personality. And for some reason, you worry that that difference will frighten him.
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They may think you’ve been unhappy
Then there’s the concern that, if you come up with a list of things you’d like to change in the bedroom, your partner will think, “Oh no—has she been silently unhappy with our sex this whole time?” But wanting to add new things to the rotation doesn’t mean you don’t like the old moves.
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“Did she do this with her last partner?”
Whoops. It’s natural to think that, if you confess to your partner that you’re into this or that in bed, he’ll wonder, “Wait a minute—is this what she did with other guys?” And, well, maybe you did. But it’s special with him because you love him.
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Communication is too formal
You’ve fallen into a habit, in your serious relationship, of speaking very methodically and casually in bed. It’s very simple statements of, “Put your leg there.” Anyways, you’re not sure how that type of language will translate to this very complex thing you’d like to try. How do you keep such lengthy instructions sexy?
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“That’s the mother of my child”
If you have a child with your partner, then it’s only normal to worry he’ll think, “That’s what the mother of my child is into? That’s not very motherly!”
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You think it’s too late
It’s also normal to think that maybe it’s too late—maybe the window is closed to make new requests in bed and now you’re stuck with what you’ve got going on. But people change and evolve—inside and outside of the bedroom—and a stable couple should be ready to adapt to those changes.
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You worry he’ll think you’re weird
For some reason, even though we show our partners all of our quirks outside the bedroom, we fear showing them our little idiosyncracies inside the bedroom. But that’s silly! If your partner really loves you, he shouldn’t judge you for what you’re into, sexually.
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Or you worry he’ll say, “Thank God”
Maybe your partner will love the fact that you want to mix things up. But maybe he’ll love it so much that he says something like, “Finally!” and make you think, “Hey—have you hated our sex life this whole time?”
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You don’t want to do the new thing forever
Maybe you just want to do something occasionally, but you don’t want to do it every time you have sex. Of course, there’s no easy way to tell your partner, who is trying to satisfy you, “Oh—I don’t want to do that this time.”
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What if he’s bad at your thing?
Eeeesh. That’s a tough situation. What if your partner is just bad at the thing you want to try? Sometimes it’s better to be left wondering than to be disappointed. But you do know that, you can always just train him. It could be fun.
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What if you’re bad at your thing?
Hey what if you’re the one who isn’t highly skilled at that thing you want to try. That could be embarrassing, right? Not really. Not if you’re really close to your partner and you’re happy to deal with a learning curve together.
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What if he’s too good at it?
Of course, if your man is too good at the thing you could be left wondering, “Hold on—where did he learn how to do that?” Or, more specifically, “With whom did he learn how to do that?”
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Opening Pandora’s box
Maybe you just have a few things you’d like to try but, you don’t necessarily want to open up the polls for all kinds of kinky things. But if you can request your things then, well, you kind of have to let him request his things.
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You may not be up for his thing
You may not like what you find when you open up the polls. Once everyone is free to say what they want to do in bed, your partner might request something that you do not want to do—something you’re terrified to learn that he wants.
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Ruining perfection
If things are great right now—you have your moves down to an art and those positions on lockdown and everybody always orgasms—it can be nerve-wracking to mess with perfection.
